ARCADIA — Now that the original Most Interesting Man in the World has retired from his beer commercials, maybe Stellar Wind’s connections can step up with a new advertising campaign: “She doesn’t always get involved in photo finishes, but when she does …”

Stellar Wind has proven more than once that she’s a street fighter, a horse you better have in your exotics when the photo sign is posted. The lone time she lost a photo, in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Keeneland in 2015, she had the type of trip you only wish on that obnoxious relative who spoils the holiday parties.

She pulled off another nail-biter Saturday at Santa Anita, outdueling a game Vale Dori to win the $400,000 Grade I Beholder Mile by a neck after the two 5-year-old mares raced as a tandem virtually the entire way.

“She’s so tough, and she doesn’t lose photos,” trainer John Sadler said in the winner’s circle after the daughter of Curlin won for the ninth time in 14 starts to pad her career bankroll to $2,053,200.

The champion 3-year-old filly of 2015, who beat the great Beholder by a neck and a half-length last year in two of their four meetings, has made a habit of out-gaming her opposition. Her latest conquest came after her and Vale Dori engaged in a battle that produced fractions of 24.12, 47.64 and 1:11.36 en route to a final clocking of 1:36.14 for the one-mile distance.

Only three showed up for the Beholder after Show Stealer and Faithfully were scratched in favor of Sunday’s $70,000 Santa Lucia Stakes. No one could remember the last time Santa Anita carded a Grade I stakes race that drew so few horses, including Sadler.

“Usually you get two or three in there looking to get Group One placed, but the top three looked so good nobody really wanted to be in there,” he said.

But the three who did load into the gate were quality mares.

Stellar Wind, along with Songbird, is arguably the best older filly-mare in training. Vale Dori, who’s gaining fast on the top two, had won six consecutive races going in, including five graded stakes. Finest City won last year’s Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint en route to an Eclipse Award.

But Stellar Wind doesn’t lose close races. Second behind Beholder in last year’s Vanity Mile (renamed the Beholder Mile this year), she didn’t disappoint her backers who bet her down to 1-2 favoritism.

“For some reason, she has so much power in the stretch, it’s hard for any of the other horses to beat her when it comes to those head-and-head (battles) down the lane,” said her jockey, Victor Espinoza, who Sadler said was responsible for Stellar Wind’s victory.

When Rafael Bejarano tried to take the race into his own hands by coaxing Vale Dori to the front, Espinoza would have nothing of it.

“(Rafael) took a really strong hold right into the first turn and I thought, ‘Oh, this is not good.’ … So I just went with her, the other horse,” Espinoza said.

The rider who has dubbed himself “the luckiest Mexican in the world” hit Stellar Wind once at the top of the stretch to let her know it was time to get her A game on, and as usual, she prevailed after a stretch-long duel with Vale Dori.

“She’s amazing, an incredible mare, but I had to do my job,” Espinoza said of the winner. “She’s waiting for me to really encourage her to go forward. She’s always been like that. She wins by enough. She never wins by far. No matter how she runs, she’s always winning by a head or a neck. But that’s enough for her.”

Stellar Wind’s co-owner, Kosta Hronis, is another awed by his mare’s tenacity.

“She’s a battler,” he said. “Vale Dori came back again a second time, and it really reminded me of the Beholder (races) when Beholder came back and Stellar Wind fought back a second time. But that’s really what we expect out of her. She’s really gutty.”

Bejarano was proud of his mare in defeat. She’d won the Grade I Santa Margarita, a trio of Grade II races — the Santa Maria, the La Canada, and the Bayakoa — and the Grade III Adoration before tasting her first defeat of 2017 in five tries.

“I’m very happy with her race,” he said. “We got beat by a great horse. My horse finished strong. When Victor moved like he did … it put the pressure on us.”

Sadler said Stellar Wind will most likely surface next in the Grade I Clement L. Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar on July 30.

• In the day’s other Grade I stakes race, Bal a Bali rallied in the stretch to win the $400,690 Shoemaker Mile by three-quarters of a length over Farhaan as the 3-1 third choice under Smith. Heart to Heart was third as the 5-2 favorite.